Purchasing Office

On September 27th, 2025 ISU Purchasing hosted a training session to introduce some process improvements to the Purchasing – Facilities Solicitation methods. While developing these documents and this training, Purchasing wanted to use this as an opportunity to reduce roadblocks and improve our collaboration and make the process more centralized and user-friendly for our campus partners. 

The training is about 17 minutes long and can be viewed here:   8.28.25 Purchasing - Facilities Solicitation Training.mp4

You can find the new documents here:

• Alternate Delivery Form 
• Solicitation Info Sheet

The Alternate Delivery Form is now a fillable PDF with fields for the user to fill out, signature approvals, and each alternate solicitation method has a description hyperlinked to the section of the State Law that allows us to use these alternate solicitation methods. 

We also made considerable efforts to combine our Pre-Solicitation checklists and informal guidance to be more user-friendly and informative. 

You will see 4 tabs in the Solicitation Info spreadsheet:

1. Pre-Solicitation Checklist (identifying pre-solicitation considerations and workflow if something is applicable to that project)
2. Solicitation Info Sheet (this is the new and improved Bid Info Sheet both Facilities teams are already familiar with submitting with their projects to be bid)
3. Examples and Guidance (this is a collection of frequent specification issues we tend to see in our design documents)
4. “Single Source” Options (this is further direction on the different types of single source purchases we can utilize and tend to cause some confusion for campus partners)
    

 

• Charter Bus Reservations

  As of July 1, 2024, Fleet Services will no longer support Charter bookings. University departments should work directly with University preferred charter vendors to secure their charter reservations. To ensure availability, Departments should contact these vendors well in advance of their trip.

   

  Departments should initiate charter bus arrangements directly with the below University-approved vendors as often as possible.  When booking with these vendors, no additional contracts should be required.  If the trip cost is in excess of $10,000, the University requisition process should be followed with a  requisition and vendor quote submitted through Sharepoint.  If under $10,000, no additional steps should be required.  Departments may sign small purchase vendor quotes ONLY for the below pre-approved vendors. 

   

  If a Department cannot secure a reservation with a preferred vendor or if the reservation is cost prohibited, Departments may seek quotes from alternate vendors.  These quotes should also include proof of insurance.  Once an acceptable quote is received, Departments should submit the quote or contract and current certificate of insurance from the charter vendor to ISU Purchasing through Sharepoint no matter the dollar value. 

   

  University-Approved Vendors

  • Illinois Central School Bus 
  • Peoria Charter 
  • Signature Transportation  (may only be utilized for 56-passenger busses at this time)
  • Timi's Tours 
  • Windstar Lines 

   

  If you still have additional questions about securing a charter reservation, check out the ISU Purchasing page for additional information.  Or, you may contact ISU Purchasing Office, (309) 438-1946.